The Glass Key - Dashiell Hammett

Small-time gambler and criminal Ned Beaumont investigates the murder of the local senator's son, heads off a gang war, and clears the name of his immoral political boss, Paul Madvig. Kidnapped, roughed up, and on the run, Ned Beaumont holds to his personal code and ultimately exposes the true culprit.
Considered one of Dashiell Hammett's favourites, The Glass Key has been adapted for radio and film, influenced other cinematic works including the award-winning film Miller's Crossing, and inspired the Glass Key Award for the best crime novel by a Scandinavian author.
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Review
"Hammett's prose was clean and entirely unique. His characters were as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction. His gift of invention never tempted him beyond the limits of credibility."
-- The New York Times

From the Inside Flap
Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett's tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness.
A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Dashiell Hammett virtually invented the hard-boiled crime novel. This classic Hammet work of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness.